Coach Brett Nelligan
Reeling from three falls on the uneven bars and two more on the balance beam, the Terrapins gymnastics team was pressing for positive momentum midway through the third rotation Friday night.
“Let’s go, Terps,” senior Stephanie Giameo yelled. “We’re not out of this yet.”
Giameo’s rallying cry spurred the Terps to hit their final three beam routines, but the team’s comeback attempt ultimately fell short. The Terps placed third, behind George Washington and West Virginia, respectively, and suffered the program’s first home loss since Feb. 18, 2012.
“I think our vault and floor are awesome, and they’re right where they need to be,” coach Brett Nelligan said. “To be honest, we’re a really good team. Bars and beam – we’re really good too. We just maybe got those opening year jitters.”
The night featured the university’s first annual Beauty and the Beast event, where both the Terps’ gymnastics and wrestling teams hosted competitions simultaneously on the Xfinity Center’s main floor.
While wrestling defeated Harvard, the Terps gymnasts could not overcome their missteps on the uneven bars to notch a victory of their own.
After all six gymnasts hit their yurchenko full vaults to begin the night, senior and team leader Katy Dodds fell on a bars release move, which sent the Terps into a rough patch.
Senior Shannon Skochko and freshman Abbie Epperson both struggled on release moves in their routines, which meant, though the Terps could drop the lowest of the six scores in the final total, two poor routines would be counted.
“[Dodds] never falls on that,” Nelligan said. “So when it happened, I think everyone got a little caught off guard, and it shook us up. But that’s something that we need to do a better job of. That’s fine – we can have one fall. If we could have pulled it back together and kept rolling, I think we would’ve been [fine]. That got us a little flustered, but it’s up to the next person in the lineup to get us back on track.”
Nelligan’s squad, however, failed to get back on track on beam in the following rotation. Junior Kathy Tang fell twice in the leadoff spot, while Sarah Faller surrendered some major wobbles to continue the Terps’ string of mishaps.
Giameo, however, anchored the beam lineup with a solid, mistake-free 9.875 routine and the Terps’ enthusiasm returned.
Seemingly out of first-place contention, the Terps nailed their final five floor exercise routines, none scoring lower than a 9.8.
Freshman Dominiquea Trotter, who also posted a 9.775 on vault, kicked off the comeback attempt on floor with a 9.8 to cap her first collegiate competition.
“[I wanted to] stay calm and positive, keep doing what I do in the gym, and just take it one skill at a time” Trotter said.
The meet ended with Dodds’ first competitive floor routine since tearing her Achilles last January. Like Trotter, her 9.8 score fired up her teammates on the edge of the floor.
“I think after my floor routine, I almost had some tears getting there,” Dodds said. “It had been a long time coming. This season is just such a gift for me. I wasn’t expecting to have a fifth year … but it felt incredible to be back out there.”
While a third place, mistake-marred performance was not what Nelligan envisioned, he remains confident his squad will correct their issues in practice as they prepare to face Minnesota in their first Big Ten dual meet on a short week.
“We’ll get [the nerves] out of our system this week in practice, and I think we’ll come in probably extra aggressive against Minnesota on Thursday,” Nelligan said.
